


destinations along the way

by segs



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: M/M, Post-Concussion Syndrome, Snapshots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-30
Updated: 2017-03-30
Packaged: 2018-10-13 02:27:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10504521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/segs/pseuds/segs
Summary: Michael and Zac. Five pitstops. Where he begins, and where they end.





	

**Author's Note:**

> i smoked a bowl and started writing and just didn't stop, so there's a fair warning
> 
> there is only one other person in the world who cares about these guys. this is for her

**POINT A —**

_Villach, Austria._

 

It snowed that year like the world was ending.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


…

  
  
  
  
  
  


**_i. en route_ **

The first time Michael sees him fight, at first he thinks it’s some kind of beautiful. He breaks skin on each knuckle and doesn’t seem to notice at all, head bowed, nose dripping blood, breathing hard. He looks feral, inhuman. Michael has been in fights, but he never claims to be good at them, and they’re few and far in between. Zac can take a punch or several.

 

After serving his five-plus-two, Zac makes his way back to the bench. His face is still flushed red at the high points, his grin wide enough to take over his entire face.

 

“What a hook, eh? What a fucking hook.”

 

The front of his jersey is stained dark from sweat; he smells like ice, wet fabric, salt, iron. Michael stares until his eyes hurt.

  
  
  
  
  
  


…

  
  
  
  
  
  


**_ii. a stop along the way_ **

Michael cracks the window to let in the sea air, and Zac grumbles in his half-sleep, “Too early, too bright.”

 

They landed in Vancouver overnight and play in the afternoon in front of a Saturday crowd, kids home from school, parents freed from their nine-to-fives. A matinee. Sold out already.

 

“Not too early,” Michael says. The time change had him up before the sun.

 

Zac rolls over in his double-bed. “Headache.” He’s been getting them too often. Michael knows what that means.

 

“Take a Tylenol.”

 

“Fuck off.” Zac pulls some of the sheets off him, and there’s that bruise on his chest, the impact of a hard hit. It looks painful, blotchy purple and yellow where the blood vessels burst. His body is a map of where he’s been and what he’s done, callouses on his fingertips, scraped knuckles, a teeth-shaped mark drawn just underneath his jaw.

 

A cool breeze drifts in, and it tastes like ocean salt and city. Coastal cities remind Michael of home, though _Drau_ doesn’t have the same salt-and-fish smell; he was never built to be away from the water. Before he learned to skate, he knew to swim.

 

Zac opens his eyes and blinks owlishly at him. “What time is it?”

 

“Half past seven.”

 

“Way too early.” He reaches for Michael. “C’mere.”

 

Michael goes easily, doesn’t need to think too hard about it.

  
  
  
  
  
  


…

  
  
  
  
  
  


**_iii. journey_ **

Zac’s eyes are closed, cheek pressed against the glass. Michael watches him with rapt attention, though he doesn’t mean to. Zac isn’t anything. Just another teammate. Michael’s had more of those than he can count. Even so.

 

The train makes a turn on a curve, and Zac’s eyes open, clouded with sleep. He finds Michael, seamlessly, like he always does.

 

“Take a picture,” he says, and laughs.

 

“You take one,” Michael says lamely. He doesn’t have an excuse.

 

Zac smiles at him. His cheeks are red, all the color flooding there. “Tired, Mikey.”

 

Michael leans back into the seat and mumbles, “Hate it when you call me that,” though he doesn’t.

 

“You don’t,” Zac says. “You like it.”

 

“No.”

 

Zac gives him this disbelieving look and Michael thinks he could kiss him. If there was no one else around. He could make the world belong to them, just for a second. Everyone else would understand.

 

“So tired,” Zac says, soft and rumbling.

 

Nothing belongs to them just yet.

 

“Sleep.”

  
  
  
  
  
  


…

  
  
  
  
  
  


**_iv. liminal_ **

Michael can count on one hand the amount of times he’s seen Zac cry.

 

Never after a hit. He lives for those. Blood in his gums, a fight, bone and muscle and teeth working together. Zac could have been a gladiator. He could have put his life at risk for a willing crowd.

 

It’s the other things.

 

Zac’s eyes water during the headaches, sometimes. Michael doesn’t touch him; he regards him like something inhuman, a frightened deer, backed into a corner with no way to escape. Zac wouldn’t like that if he knew.

 

Michael holds Zac’s face in both of his hands. He doesn’t know why he feels like he can make it go away, like he can push all of his will out through his palms. Zac won’t be magically healed. It happened a million times over, brain swimming in skull, a shock to the system. Michael can’t reverse it.

 

“Is this good?” Michael asks, uncharacteristically serious.

 

“It’s good.” Zac breathes out through his nose. “Feels good.”

 

Michael presses his thumbs into Zac’s cheeks, the warm flush there. “You look like shit.”

 

Zac rolls his eyes. “You really know how to sweet-talk me.”

 

It didn’t start when he made pro; it happened before that. He had to move up somehow. They wanted him for his fists. They wanted him because he didn’t back down. They wanted him because he spilled blood for them, and that’s a different kind of contract, one that no one will back out of.

 

Michael’s path was different. They sought him out; they saw something in him. He doesn’t know what they saw, and wishes he did. At least Zac knew all along. Maybe it made it easier to take a hit.

 

Zac’s hand comes up to hold Michael’s wrist, and he pushes his face further into Michael’s palm. His lips are warm and dry. He whispers something, but Michael doesn’t hear it. He doesn’t need to.

  
  
  
  
  
  


…

  
  
  
  
  
  


**_v. sehnsucht_ **

Michael has two beers in him by the time Zac walks in the door carrying a six-pack. It started raining with no warning, like the sky just opened up above Philadelphia, and he’s soaked down to his shoes, swearing under his breath.

 

“You’re wet,” Michael says helpfully.

 

“No shit, man?” He toes his shoes off at the door. “It’s like the fucking apocalypse out there.”

 

Michael eyes him from his spot on the couch, shameless in the way he gets to be when he’s been drinking. He doesn’t have to think too hard. It’s easy to like someone. Nothing complicated there.

 

Zac scrubs a hand through his hair and drops of water spray onto the floor. “Sorry,” he says, but he smiles in a way that says he isn’t, making his way to the couch. “ _Catfish_? Really?”

 

“Something to watch,” Michael says, but he isn’t even paying attention.

 

Zac flops down next to him and leans in close. “Or you just love trashy TV, man, admit it.”

 

Michael pushes him away with one hand on his shoulder. “You smell like wet dog.”

 

“Yeah, probably,” Zac says, and leans in again. “But you like me. That’s your fault. Like a stray that keeps coming back.”

 

“Should have never fed you,” Michael says, low and sweet, because he doesn’t mean it and never will. “Now I’ll never get rid of you.”

 

“Nope.” And Zac kisses him.

  
  
  
  
  
  


…

  
  
  
  
  
  


**POINT B —**

_Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA_

 

Zac calls Michael and tells him that Reader owes him twenty bucks. Everybody knew it was happening, so he can’t be sad about it. He’s not stupid or sentimental and he isn’t going to cry about something he can’t change. Zac’s time here was always measured by the minute-hand; Michael knew that.

 

On the phone, Zac sounds like he’s talking his way around a smile. “You’ll miss me.”

 

“No.”

 

“It’s just Boston,” Zac says, ignoring him. “It’s not, like, fuckin’ Arizona.”

 

“I said I wasn’t going to miss you.” Michael chews on the cuticle of his thumbnail. “You smell. You never pay me back for shit.”

 

“You never ask.”

 

“‘Cause I know you won’t.”

 

Zac laughs, and there’s a beat of silence. Warm air drifts in from the open window. It’s the type of summer day where the heat stays down in the city, trapped by the buildings. Michael has his bags packed for his trip home already, always yearning for the cool breeze from the river.

 

Zac’s breath is steady over the phone and Michael could tell him, maybe, that he’d miss him. Boston isn’t so far away, but they’ll be living separate lives, different schedules. Michael threatened a million times to ask Bellsy for a roommate switch, but he never did, and now none of that will matter.

 

Michael sighs into the phone. “I’ll be seeing you around.”

 

“Keep your head up,” Zac says. “I don’t play favorites.”

 

“You do.”

 

Zac laughs again, but this time it sounds blurred around the edges. “Yeah, I do. Sometimes.”

 


End file.
